CONTINUED Democrat failure and lies as economy remains wobbling

We all know their old school lies like tax cuts don't help the economy (LOL), over regulation is somehow good, spend spend spend, etc. But this right here is just MORE proof that the Jackass Party really has NO idea how to handle an economy, are wrong on most ALL fiscal issues, and views here are more in line with Cuba's.

This IS OBAMA and HIS party's economy, has been for years now. It's time they stop with the silly blame Bush BS, man up, and take responsibility.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Consumer sentiment worsened this month on renewed concerns about the outlook for the economy and as gloom about job and income prospects persisted, data showed on Friday.

But a separate report suggested the pace of the recovery could soon pick up after spinning its wheels in the first half of the year.

Taking the unexpected soft patch into account, the International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for U.S. economic growth, warning Washington and debt-ridden European countries that they are "playing with fire" unless they take immediate steps to reduce their budget deficits.

While the IMF thinks downside risks to growth have increased, it still expects the economy to gain speed next year.

U.S. consumer sentiment declined more than expected in June, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey showed, as consumers remained pessimistic about stagnant incomes and job prospects.

"Job growth is, at best, anemic and the unemployment rate is high. If you've been laid off, it's probably been for a long period of time," said Cary Leahey, economist and managing director at Decision Economics in New York. "That can't help but affect these sentiment figures."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of people on companies' payrolls shrank in more than half the U.S. states in May, even though the jobless rates in many places continued to improve, Labor Department data released on Friday showed.

The number of employees working for businesses outside of farming decreased in 27 states and Washington, D.C., while it increased in 22 states.

The largest drop in payrolls was in California, which shed 29,200 jobs, followed by New York with 24,700 jobs, and Pennsylvania with 14,200.

WASHINGTON – Unemployment rates fell in fewer than half of U.S. states, evidence that slower hiring has affected many parts of the country.

The unemployment rates in 24 states dropped, the Labor Department said Friday. Rates rose in 13 states and Washington, D.C, and were flat in 13. That's a significant decline from April, when 39 states reported falling unemployment rates.

And only 22 states reported a net gain in jobs in May, while 27 states lost jobs. That's much worse than April, when 42 states gained jobs.

The changing trend in state unemployment rates reflect a weaker economy that has been hampered by high gas prices and lower factory output. Nationally, employers added a net gain of only 54,000 jobs in May, compared to an average of 220,000 per month in the previous three months. The U.S. unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent.

Careful, the Dems don't like when you point out there mistakes. Remember, the Republicans are responsible for the mess this country is in. The Dems are our saviors. (Just give them a little more time, OK? They are slow out of the gate)

Careful, the Dems don't like when you point out there mistakes. Remember, the Republicans are responsible for the mess this country is in. The Dems are our saviors. (Just give them a little more time, OK? They are slow out of the gate)

LOL right. I've noticed again today many of em going into flame mode when confronted with facts like these. Even the most generous estimates don't have out economy being much better than this by election time next year.

Careful, the Dems don't like when you point out there mistakes. Remember, the Republicans are responsible for the mess this country is in. The Dems are our saviors. (Just give them a little more time, OK? They are slow out of the gate)

This goes back to trade issues, or lack of US trade issues. A bipartisan policy started decades ago. One thing extreme unemployment begets is is extreme unemployment.

Obama was dead wrong for not reversing the policies, and he now is expanding on them, this will add to an ongoing problem.

The real problem stems from a lack of a rational solution from either party.

The dems want more debt for a plan that has failed, more stimulus.

The repubs want to cut taxes.

Neither is a viable solution on their own. Both lead to more debt and more taxes.

the only thing i would point out is that while there were no new tax cuts, the bush tax cuts WERE extended to the rich, and we've yet to see the impact. many people said that until the rich were sure their tax cuts were safe, they wouldn't be investing and creating jobs. well its been roughly half a year. not sure exactly how long that takes, but it would appear its made ZERO impact thus far.

the only thing i would point out is that while there were no new tax cuts, the bush tax cuts WERE extended to the rich, and we've yet to see the impact. many people said that until the rich were sure their tax cuts were safe, they wouldn't be investing and creating jobs. well its been roughly half a year. not sure exactly how long that takes, but it would appear its made ZERO impact thus far.

We all know their old school lies like tax cuts don't help the economy (LOL), over regulation is somehow good, spend spend spend, etc. But this right here is just MORE proof that the Jackass Party really has NO idea how to handle an economy, are wrong on most ALL fiscal issues, and views here are more in line with Cuba's.

This IS OBAMA and HIS party's economy, has been for years now. It's time they stop with the silly blame Bush BS, man up, and take responsibility.

There's nothing remotely conservative about believing in magic. Yet when it comes to fiscal questions, Republicans are as superstitious as gamblers around a roulette wheel. Regardless of how much they've lost, they're confident their system will prevail if they double down one more time.

How you can tell they're about to do something momentously dumb is when they're unanimous, i.e., operating on sheer ideology. Show me a unified GOP, and I'll show you a budgetary disaster about to happen. That's what makes the pending showdown over raising the national debt limit so worrying.

But hold that thought.

The betting system the GOP's been playing for the past 30 years is called supply-side economics. "The theory goes like this," explains David Cay Johnston. "Lower tax rates will encourage more investment, which in turn will mean more jobs and greater prosperity -- so much so that tax revenues will go up, despite lower rates."

To anybody with a passing interest in the material world, it's clear that this has never happened. Over the same period, the national debt has risen to more than $14 trillion -- almost 90 percent of it under Republican presidents.

Meanwhile, ordinary citizens have failed to prosper as President Reagan's seductive "morning in America" rhetoric promised. Since 1980, Johnston shows, "the average income of the vast majority -- the bottom 90 percent of Americans -- has increased a meager $303, or 1 percent." Meanwhile, the income of the upper 1 percent of taxpayers more than doubled, and that of the top tenth of 1 percent increased more than 400 percent.

Social mobility in the United States lags behind many European countries. The richest 300,000 American taxpayers currently enjoy incomes roughly equal to that of the bottom 150 million combined.

Anyway, here's what I mean about the dangers of GOP herd behavior: Given current conservative hysteria about "runaway spending," it's worth remembering that the United States last balanced the federal budget in FY2001 under Bill Clinton.

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That was largely a result of the Clinton income-tax increases of 1993, enacted without a single GOP vote amid universal Republican predictions of doom. They probably cost the Democrats control of Congress in 1994.

But contrary to Newt Gingrich and the rest, what followed was the most prolonged economic boom since World War II -- 22 million new jobs altogether, the only period since 1980 when middle-class prosperity grew substantially.

Enter George W. Bush and the now-infamous tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Actually professing to worry that eliminating the national debt too quickly would throw markets into turmoil, Republicans again promised lower taxes, higher revenue and boom times.

Again, they were virtually unanimous, voting to cut marginal income tax rates mainly on the wealthy by 224-1 in the House and 48-3 in the Senate.

Two wars and a large entitlement increase (Medicare, Part D) later, no boom took place. At its peak in 2007, the Bush economy had produced roughly 8 million jobs (7 million of which vanished in the 2007-09 financial crisis).

Budget deficits soared, topping out with the $1.3 trillion FY2009 shortfall President Obama inherited that January.

"Will the tax cuts pay for themselves?" Edward Lazear, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors told a Senate committee in 2006. "As a general rule, we do not think tax cuts pay for themselves. Certainly, the data presented above do not support this claim."

Lazear's predecessor, Harvard's Greg Mankiw, has written scholarly articles arguing that the economic boost from tax cuts amounts to roughly 30 percent of government revenue forgone.

In direct consequence, the national debt almost doubled under George W. Bush, from roughly $5 trillion in 2001 to more than $10 trillion in 2009.

Also in consequence, every Republican leader now posing as a hard-line fiscal conservative -- Speaker John Boehner, Rep. Eric Cantor, Rep. Paul Ryan, and Sen. McConnell -- voted to increase the national debt limit at least seven times under President Bush. All of them, every time.

Ironically, of the present players, only Barack Obama made what he now calls a protest vote against raising the debt limit in 2006.

Under a Democratic president, GOP supply-siders are mad keen to give the wheel another spin. Republican House members voted 235-4 for Rep. Ryan's preposterous fantasy of balancing the budget by cutting millionaires' taxes by $1 trillion and downgrading Medicare to a cheaper voucher system.

So now the same posers vow to risk the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. Treasury during a fragile economic recovery unless President Obama agrees to deep cuts in the nation's social safety net.

A mature electorate would have wised up by now.

* Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com. More: Gene Lyons